Columnist Confirms CIA Plot [Against President Bush]

Accuracy In Media ^ | Nov. 29, 2005 | Cliff Kincaid

[magua]

That''s Bush's reward for keeping the Clinton people on at CIA.Also the pres seems to like being a pinata all year long.I can't stand his silence on such matters.When does anyone at the white house get out in front of this story?

[ravingnutter]

Everyone's too busy bashing Bush on the immigration proposal threads.

[TruthNtegrity]

Bookmarking

[BigSkyFreeper]

Do Congressional conservatives have the courage to take on the CIA?

No. They're too damn busy chasing after doped up baseball stars, crooked oil barons, and trying to fix the failed TV industry ratings system.

[nopardons]

Congressional Conservatives are far and few between.

[popdonnelly]

Actually, you don't need a big conspiracy at the CIA to damage an Administration. What you need are some disgruntled CIA employees, their contacts on the outside who are no longer with the Agency, and a few sympathetic journalists. Which I think is close to the truth in the Wilson case.

[Steve_Seattle]

"Actually, you don't need a big conspiracy at the CIA to damage an Administration. What you need are some disgruntled CIA employees, their contacts on the outside who are no longer with the Agency, and a few sympathetic journalists. Which I think is close to the truth in the Wilson case."

I don't think this was a set-up from the very start, i.e., I don't think Wilson went to Niger with the express purpose of using it to undermine Bush. I think it's more likely that he was mainly going there to pursue private business contacts, and maybe his wife saw that adding in the bogus "investigation" would be a way to kill two birds with one stone - reply to Cheney's request for Niger info "on the cheap," and have the CIA pick up the tab for Wilson's trip. So Wilson went to Niger, made his half-assed investigation, was briefed, and the report died in the bowels of the CIA, never even getting back to Cheney.

That might have ended it, but - a year later - the missing WMD's became a political issue, Wilson joined the Kerry camp, and they suddenly saw this as an opportunity to make political trouble for Bush. So Wilson went to sympathetic reporters with a story that kept changing. Emboldened, he then went public, and when his wife's name was mentioned by Novak, someone in the Kerry camp - or perhaps Cooper or some other journalist friendly to Wilson - had the bright idea of spinning the "outing" story, and the media - always dreaming of another Watergate - eagerly bought it. Then some disgruntled CIA hands - present and former - joined in for both anti-Bush and CYA motives.

[pankot]

Ping ping PING! I knew it too. Will the MSM bury it?

[p23185]

What you need are some disgruntled CIA employees, their contacts on the outside who are no longer with the Agency, and a few sympathetic journalists. Which I think is close to the truth in the Wilson case."

You mean like Larry Johnson, who runs around the country telling anyone who will listen about the corrupt Bush Administration. larry johnson.

[popdonnelly]

Sounds highly plausible to me.

[Miss Marple]

I think you are close to the truth. Wilson's story about Niger changed (according to the Intelligence Committee report) and outing Plame as revenge is really a lame accusation. The President getting revenge by revealing Plame's identity is really a pitiful sort of revenge, isn't it? I mean, what sort of revenge is it that gets someone a 6-figure book deal and appearances on all the political talk shows? I have never understood why anyone believed this was a deliberate attempt at revenge, anyway!

[muawiyah]

All of your proposed ways of driving out federal employees have been tried and eventually "outlawed". I was involved in one such battle and won it. That's why you can't just stick them in bad jobs repeatedly until they leave.

On the other hand, none of that applies to CIA employees. They can be fired at will for any reason. Sometimes they've even shown up dead.

[syriacus]

FreeRepublic thread-- October 26, 2005

Peter King calling Joe Wilson a fraud and a liar on Scarborough NOW

Saying CIA people trying to undermine the President.

[FreedomCalls]

The solution is to move the government out of DC.

Senator Byrd, it that you?

[popdonnelly]

"outing Plame as revenge is really a lame accusation."

It is a lame accusation. And it seems to suggest desperation on Joe Wilson's part. As if he wanted to shift the focus from his wife sending him to Niger to imagined evil-doing by the White House.

[Steve_Seattle]

"It is a lame accusation. And it seems to suggest desperation on Joe Wilson's part. As if he wanted to shift the focus from his wife sending him to Niger to imagined evil-doing by the White House."

It's always seemed that way to many of us; the "outing" theory seemed implausible. And it may indeed be true that Wilson dreamed up this theory not just because it was damaging to Bush, but because he had his own reasons for not wanting his wife's role known. And those reasons may have included that his wife had arranged a previous trip in 1999, and that questions of Wilson using government resources to subsidize personal business trips might have been raised. And the specific nature of his business activities might also have proved embarrassing.

I would love to know Wilson's itinerary for both Niger trips - exactly who he talked to, and about what, and how much of his time was spent on personal business and how much on his "investigation." His account of his 2002 trip raised questions in my mind about how much investigating he really did, or intended to do. If I recall correctly, he said that flights went in to Niger only twice a week, and the flights were spaced only about 10-12 hours apart, which is why he stayed eight days. He actually implied that 10-12 hours was almost - but not quite enough - time to do his investigation. That seems absurd. At any rate, he described dinner parties, sightseeing, etc, along with his investigation, in which he claimed he interviewed "dozens" of people. I really doubt he had time for that.

Again, I wonder if Wilson tossed out the "outing" theory to immediately distract attention from the shoddy and half-baked - indeed unprofessional - nature of his investigation, and it was partly to conceal this that elements in the CIA were so quick to rally behind him.

And, as usual in this case, we find ourselves asking the obvious questions that the MSM usually asks but has never asked in this case. No one in the MSM has taken a close look at Wilson's claims, why he was really in Niger, why he went there in 1999, did he really conduct a proper investigation, or any of this. The "Bush outed Plame to 'get' Wilson" theory was just too damned attractive to the MSM; as the general said after Katrina, the MSM is "stuck on stupid."

[Candor7]

The 5th column left wing dims in the CIA are not new news to Freepers. This fact was discussed in these forums many months ago. I am starting to think that journalists lurk among us freepers in order to get investigative ideas!